More MH17 Victims Found as Families Beg for the Return of Their Bodies

20 Jul 2014

Ukraine Deputy Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said twenty-seven more bodies were found at the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 scene; in total, 192 of the 298 victims have been recovered.

Pro-Russian forces transported the victims in refrigerated cars to the Torez train station and said the bodies will stay there until experts arrive. The bodies were in the field in the summer heat for almost four days.

Kiev and other world leaders expressed disgust over the treatment of the bodies, but no one is angrier than the victims’ families. Silene Fredriksz lost her son Bryce and his girlfriend Daisy on the flight and begged Russian President Vladimir Putin to release the bodies.

“They’re lying there on the floor somewhere,” she cried. “I don’t know where they are. I want to arrange their funeral. I can’t… I want them back. I want my children back… Mr Putin – send my children home. Send them home. Please.”

She held a picture of her son and his girlfriend as people gathered at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. The Netherlands lost 193 citizens on the flight.

“Twenty-three and 20 years old,” said Ms. Fredriksz. “Look at those people. How beautiful. They have to come back.”

Bryce and Daisy were going to Thailand for a vacation.

From Scotland, Kevin Anderson said his family will make it their top priority to receive his brother Stephen’s body from Ukraine. He is speaking to the press since his parents and Stephen’s wife are too upset to speak about the incident.

“It’s not really sunk in yet,” he said. “It’s one of those things you think will never happen to you but it has. Who knows what answers we will get. Whether we will ever know the exact detail remains to be seen. I think it’s whether we can get him back here – that’s the key for us now.”

“Stephen and his wife Joanna were together for 15 years and the whole family spent last Christmas together,” he continued. “Stephen has left behind a beautiful daughter and a loving family.”

Stephen lived in Malaysia with his wife and child.

In The Sunday Mail, Peter Hitchens penned an op-ed arguing that the victims of MH17 should not be propagandized because this is one incident in a war that has been raging since mid-April.

Ignoring repeated and increasingly urgent warnings from Moscow, the EU – backed by the USA – sought to bring Ukraine into its orbit. It did so through violence and illegality, an armed mob and the overthrow of an elected president.

I warned then that this would lead to terrible conflict. I wrote in March: ‘Having raised hopes that we cannot fulfil, we have awakened the ancient passions of this cruel part of the world – and who knows where our vainglorious folly will now lead?’

Now we see. Largely unreported over the past few months, a filthy little war has been under way in Eastern Ukraine.

Many innocents have died, unnoticed in the West. Neither side has anything to boast of – last Tuesday 11 innocent civilians died in an airstrike on a block of flats in the town of Snizhne, which Ukraine is unconvincingly trying to blame on Russia.

In April, then-interim Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov started an anti-terrorist operation in east Ukraine to retake the area from pro-Russian forces. Over 1,000 people have died, and that number includes almost 500 innocent civilians and 300 Ukrainian soldiers. Deadly battles between the pro-Russians and Ukraine continue to occur on a daily basis.